Looking to turn more tweets into cash, ESPN is broadening its partnership with Twitter to try to sell ad-supported video highlight clips for a range of sporting events promoted in tweets on the social-media giant’s service.
Twitter and ESPN announced a partnership last year to sell ads around fan tweets, and expanded into video highlights for college football in the fall. Now the duo are bringing the concept to other major sporting events, including the World Cup and ESPN’s X-Games, representing a continuation of the year-old partnership, an ESPN rep said.
The social-media giant has similar deals with The Weather Co. and Turner Broadcasting System to promote short-form video, and Twitter has been in discussions with other media companies about such partnerships. Fox, at its upfront presentation Monday, announced that it will team with Twitter to generate tweets with short video clips — and sell ads for them — promoting TV shows or featuring highlights from live events.
ESPN, which is expected to tout the expanded Twitter relationship at its upfront Tuesday in New York, requires that advertisers buy a minimum amount of sponsored highlight-video tweets. The sports cabler owns multiplatform rights to highlights with every major pro and college sports league.
